Examination of Personality and Game Preference

Running Heading: EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
Examination of Personality and Game Preference
John Pollock
Texas A&M University - Commerce EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
Examination of Personality and Game Preference
The video game industry is growing very rapidly. In 2013 alone, over 15 billion USD were spent on video games (Research Shows, 2014), where theater spending in the United States and Canada only reached 10.9 billion USD (Theatrical Market Statistics, 2013). Such significant numbers indicate that the game industry, while not taken seriously until recently by many academics, has become a viable field of study. There are genres of games that exist only in the computer market, such as platformer (e.g. Super Mario World) or first person shooter (e.g. Halo or Call of Duty). However, many people still prefer to play non-computer games, such as tabletop or role-playing games. Groups that play these physical games are being targeted aggressively by the video game industry, as they are something of an untapped market. This study will attempt to identify connections between the types of games that people play and the traits identified in the Big 5 Personality Index (BFPI). Finding a link between game preference and these traits could give researchers another look into human personality and a more developed and academic look at game play in general.
With video games quickly changing how we perceive entertainment and even interacting with other people, it is interesting to examine how individuals are spending their “play time” based on basic personality traits such as extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability, all measured by the BFPI. Samuel Gosling, a researcher at the University of Texas, has examined how personality is connected to musical preference (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2006). And in some sense this is a conceptual replication of that work. EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
The inclusion of games as a societal activity predates such modern activities as television and radio and in fact, can be traced all the way back to the Egyptians, Greeks, and Persians. Video games are a much more recent development, beginning in 1940 at the Westinghouse display at the World’s Fair with Nim, a computer simulation of a traditional game (Condon, Derr & Tawney, 2015). In this era, games of some kind are enjoyed by almost all people, regardless of background, age, or gender. Games have always served as a form of social interaction, especially one that allows for two or more people to interact in a more structured activity. Personal preferences, especially when it comes to entertainment, are extremely varied, even within the individual, as preferences change over time and are influenced by many external factors e.g., when previously salient properties cease to be salient. (Dietrich & List, 2013). The purpose of this study is to examine preferences in game type and determine if there is a correlation between the form of a game preferred and personality. Finding a link between personality and game preference could influence the market in several ways, allowing developers to target their specific audience more accurately, as well as potentially drawing in new players. Because games are constantly evolving, continuing research in fields such as games is important so that researchers can explore the effect that current activities have on our society.
Previous studies have been performed that have considered the link between personality and game preference. On particular study, reported in 2010, suggests that “A comprehensive framework for examining the interaction between player characteristics and game features is needed for a better understanding of the process of game play and its impacts on users.” (Fang & Zhao, 2010). The study also starts by criticizing the fact that most of EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
academia is focused solely on the link between aggressive personalities and violent video games, and proposes that it is not known whether personality influences game choice or if game choice shapes personality. Fang and Zhao begin to lay out this proposed framework by investigating two personality traits (sensation seeking and self-forgetfulness) and their impact on the enjoyment of playing computer games. A correlation between game enjoyment and type of game was found, suggesting that people have predetermined preferences when seeking out a game. Building on this idea and expanding it beyond the limitations of computer games will give researchers a much more comprehensive understanding of how games are experienced by different people. At an over-arching level, this call forms the basis of the present study.
A study was performed by researchers at the University of Newcastle in Callaghan, South New Wales, Australia that examined a possible connection between the types of video games played by adolescent boys as well as their participation in physical activity and recreational screen time (Thorne, et al., 2014). This study examined boys, roughly 13 years old, in low-income communities in New South Wales. The study found that there is a correlation between “weekday and weekend screen-time and weekday physical activity.” The data also “suggested that time spent in screen-based recreation on weekends may displace physical activity.” The most interesting piece of data, however, is that the groups that primarily played sports and racing games had the lowest amount of screen time per day, and the highest amount of physical activity, timewise. Likewise, players of role-playing and strategy games had the highest screen times and lowest physical activity times. While such games generally require a much more serious time investment, it is significant that there is a discernible difference in EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
what children are playing and how that affects their lives. This suggests that there is some influence of personality on what type of entertainment a person enjoys.
Personality and some aspect of game preference is a new field of study that has slowly followed the rise in popularity of video games. However, no study has concurrently examined different types of game formats. Instead, most of this work has been using computer games. For example, Park, Song, & Teng have identified five major factors that influence people to play online games, but found no correlation between personality and preferred online game genre (2011). Another study, performed by Nick Yee, also examined motivations for online game play and how the relate to attributes such as age, gender, and in-game behaviors (2007). Some tentative findings have been made about video game type preferences and personality. For example, one study shows that people who are open, yet not agreeable, are more drawn to violent video game play (Chory & Goodboy, 2011), whereas Ching (2008) found that, in the sample those that played online video games scored much higher in openness, conscientiousness, and extraversion than those that did not. Building on that, Park, Song, and Teng (2011) explore the link between personality and motivations to play online video games. The study determined, similar to Chory’s study, agreeableness and extraversion were most salient in predicting motivations to play online games. This is a reasonable conclusion, as the reward system offered in many online games is somewhat unique, generally assigning rewards for time spent as opposed to rewarding the increase of a manual skill of the player. This style of progression likely appeals to a very different person than one who may enjoy a system of achievement purely based on the improvement of individual skill. EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
Some studies have been done on other “games” and personality, such as drinking games. In 2014, a study was published that showed a link between drinking game participation and impulsive, thrill-seeking tendencies (Diulio, Silvestri, & Correia, 2014). This study was done to inform students of the dangers of drinking games, but it confirms a common assumption about them. That is, that participation in drinking games is linked to impulsivity and sensation seeking. Brocklebank, Lewis, & Bates examined links between personality, preferences, and expectations across several simple games (2011). The study used real-money games that were related to simple economics and found that a single dimension called “prosocial orientation” measured concern for the payoffs received. Scores on this dimension were closely related to personality, with openness, low neuroticism, and low extraversion as predictors.
The relationship between physical and digital games has been bridged in some ways, but with mixed results. Online versions of card games such as Magic: The Gathering have met with reasonable success, but have not approached the popularity of their physical counterparts. Recently, for example, the value of Magic Online cards has dropped 11.1% (Keng, 2013). Similarly, while role-playing games are a popular computer genre, they have not displaced table-top games such as Dungeons and Dragons. Other links between the physical and virtual world such as the Microsoft Kinect have also met mixed success, with the Xbox One doubling in sales numbers after they offered a lower priced, Kinect-free alternative (Xbox One Sales, 2014). These devices are great for families, but fail to succeed in appealing to a more “hardcore” gamer.
Links between game and career preference have also been examined, with the strongest associations found in women, especially when those women were interested in EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
STEM-related fields (Giammarco, 2014). Spatial ability has been examined as a factor for determining how successful one will be in a STEM-related field (Blickenstaff, 2005), and video games, especially competitive ones may highlight those same skills (Sanchez, 2012). Giammarco also studied the types of interactions that players sought in games and how they influenced career interests. His study supported the hypothesis that players that sought more social activities in games were more likely to prefer careers in leadership and counseling positions. It was also hypothesized that a preference for fantasy games was an indicator of interest in the creative arts. However, this finding was not supported, and it is hypothesized that a preference for fantasy games may be an indicator of creative preference in general, such as abstract problem solving.
World of Warcraft (WoW), being the dominant online computer game that it is, deserves a mention. This game has been examined several times in several different lights in regards to personality. The strongest correlations occur not within the player’s specialization, class, or even race, but by which type of content they enjoy. More specifically, the players that participated strictly in role-playing content were identified as higher in agreeableness, neuroticism, and openness to experience, but lower on extraversion and conscientiousness. However, the values for all players was not significantly different than the average for non-WoW players (Bean & Groth-Marnat, 2014). The results actually determined that WoW players scored, on average, less neurotic than the general population. Several researchers from the University of Illinois and the Palo Alto Research Center have also studied the social dynamics of guilds in WoW. The found that these collections of players were often utilized to extend real-life relationships, meet new people, form relationships, and provide a backdrop for their EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
actions in-game (Williams et al., 2006). These results could be used to draw conclusions that because of the sheer amount of time required to fully experience a game like WoW, personalities are being shaped by the game.
As evidenced by the aforementioned studies, there surely is a link between some kinds of games and some aspects of a person’s personality. While results thus far have been piece-meal, a broad examination would introduce a new perspective that allows future researchers to more strategically examine how personality is reflected in our everyday entertainment preferences. Being able to identify links between personality and game preference would offer great benefits to psychology, game designers, and marketing firms. It can be reasonably hypothesized that a link between personality and game preferences exists, due to the amount of successful research performed in the past. This study will attempt to further detail that link.
Method
A total of 98 participants were drawn from a pool of students at Texas A&M University – Commerce. The survey was conducted online via the survey hosting website, Qualtrics. The responses were made up of individuals from several backgrounds. Of the responses, 49% were white/Caucasian, 26.5% were African American, and the other 24.5% was made up of several other ethnicities. Considering the surveyed population was college students, it is not surprising that 40.8% of the responses were from individuals aged 20-22, with 25.5% being 18-19, and the other 33.7% being 23 or over. The average participant played games of any kind for between 3 and 4 hours per week, and had been playing games for between 5 and 10 years. Video games were played just slightly more often than non-video games. The most played non-video game EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
type was social games, consisting of group narrative games and simple games not including organized sports. The most played video game type was casual, such as Angry Birds or Candy Crush. Post-hoc, the data was divided by those with a tendency to spend time on one game modality. Dividing the groups by video game time left 38 people in the primarily video gamers category (henceforth referred to as video gamers), and 31 in the primarily non-video gamers category (henceforth referred to as non-video gamers). The other 29 results spent between 40 and 60 percent of their game time playing both types of games.
In order to assess their game preferences, participants answered a multi-part survey that starts by asking what percentage of their time they spend playing tangible versus virtual games. The survey then goes on to ask about different types of games while prompting the participant to indicate what percentage of their time that they spend on each type of game. Physical game players were asked to indicate how they spend their time between bar, card, social, sports, and tabletop games. Each of the categories has at least two subcategories that the participant was again asked about. For example, the participants that indicated having spent time on tabletop games were then asked to report how they split their play time between board, casino, miniature, role-playing, and simulated sports games. Each type of game includes a brief description and at least two examples to ensure that the participant is informed about their decision. Virtual game players or people that responded that they spend time on both kinds of games were then asked about how they spend their time with different genres of computer games. The different genre options offered are: action, shooter, action/adventure, adventure, role-playing, simulation, strategy, sports, casual, and rhythm. The extreme detail in EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
differentiating game preference type is crucial as people presumptively spend more time on games that they enjoy.
Participants were then asked to complete a 44 item Big-Five Personality Inventory (John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008). The Big-Five was chosen as it “permit[s] researchers to study specified domains of related personality characteristics, rather than examining separately the thousands of particular attributes that make human beings individual and unique.” Each item is Likert-scaled from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). While it is only 44 questions long, the BFPI is very reliable with an alpha of .83, making it one of the best choices for an overall survey of personality items (John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008).
Finally, participants were prompted to complete the survey by providing basic demographic information including sex, age, ethnicity, level of education, religiosity, and experience with games. A basic religiosity measure was included in the survey, as it was developed for a related study using this same data, but that information was not used here. A copy of the survey can be found in Appendix A. After collecting the data, a variety of descriptive statistics and correlations provided a first look at the data. Subsequent analysis created and compared the two aforementioned groups, based on how much of their time they spent playing video games. Those that spent more than 60% of their game playing time playing video games were classified as video gamers. Those that spent less than 40% of their time playing video games were classified as non-video gamers.
EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
Results
There were some significant correlations between aspects of personality as measured by the Big 5 and game preference as measured from self-reported time spent. For example, more extraverted individuals were less likely to spend time playing card and tabletop games as opposed to other tangible game types. Additionally, as neuroticism went up, playtime in both physical sports and video game sports went down. By contrast, playtime in MMORPGs was positively correlated with neuroticism. And, openness score was positively correlated with increased playtime in both role-playing and empire building/resource management board games. All of these correlations are significant at least at the p < 0.05 level.
A one-factor ANOVA was performed with video gamer/non-video gamer being the sole factor, followed by a t-test using the personality variables. These tests showed only a few significant results, but none of them linked to personality. ANOVA Results with significance can be found in Table 1. Table 2 contains ANOVA results for the BFPI variables.
Table 1
One-factor ANOVA Results for Video Gamers vs. Non Video Gamers
Category
Video Gamer
Non-Video Gamer
F
Significance
Time Spent Playing Games
3.45
2.82
7.975
0.006
Hours Played per Week
3.77
2.91
7.181
0.009
Current Income Level
1.73
2.45
6.997
0.010
EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
Table 2
T-Test Personality Results for Video Gamers vs. Non Video Gamers
Category
Video Gamer
Non-Video Gamer
t
p
Extraversion
3.1307
3.1912
0.365
0.716
Agreeableness
3.8333
3.6217
-1.499
0.138
Conscientiousness
3.4596
3.4902
0.219
0.828
Neuroticism
3.1786
3.0662
-0.680
0.499
Openness
3.5588
3.4572
-0.705
0.483
Because of the scaling used in the survey, the results in Table 1 require some interpretation. Time Spent Playing Games for Video Gamers was between 5-10 years and 10+ years. Non Video Gamers had been playing games for 2-5 to 5-10 years. Hours played per week for Video Gamers was between 3-4 and 5-9. Non Video Gamers spent 3-4 hours per week playing games. Current Income range (or parents’ income range) was between $0-$18,999 and $19,000-$45999. Non Video Gamers’ income ranges were between $19,000-$45,999 and $46,000-$75,999. Because of the wording of the question, it is likely some subjects reported their own income, and others their parents. This potential confound limits the utility of this variable.
Discussion
The idea that video gamers are very different from non-gamers is quite commonly held. This study was performed under the assumption that this was true. However, the results indicate no strong personality differences as indicated by the Big Five. This could be interpreted in a number of ways. The one hypothesis is just that video gamers and non-video gamers are not that different, personality-wise, that is, gamers are gamers. The results support this, as there is not a significant difference between the two groups. This could serve as an effort to redirect research not towards personality differences between people that primarily play video EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
games and people that primarily play other games, but towards different ways of categorizing gamers. Another possible explanation is that people who play games are just no different than others, that is, that gaming is not a meaningful correlate with personality. However, previous findings do not support such a position.
The research did, however, show that there is a correlation between playing video games over non-video games and the amount of time an individual has spent playing games, the number of hours an individual plays games per week, and (perhaps) their current income level. Those that indicated that they spend 60% or more of their game time playing video games had also been playing games for longer in general. They also spent more time per week playing games. In short, this suggests that most “hardcore” gamers were computer gamers.
The results of previous studies are mirrored in our findings. Park, Song, & Teng studied a smaller aspect of games (online gaming), but found no significant correlation between personality and preferred online game genre (2011). However, Ching found that those that played online video games scored much higher in openness, conscientiousness, and extraversion (2008). Our results show very slightly decreased extraversion and conscientiousness, and slightly increased openness among those that preferred video games over physical games, but none of those relations reached statistical significance. It should also be considered that this study did not differentiate between online and offline video games, but between video game and non-video game types.
Bean & Groth-Marnat also studied a similar phenomenon in World of Warcraft (WoW) players, and found that players that enjoyed certain types of content displayed different personality traits (2014). However, when compared with non-WoW players, the population EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
displayed no statistically significant differences in any of the personality variables. This finding then does align with our research, showing that playing a specific game or type of game does not indicate any personality trait’s presence.
Future research in this field is still warranted. Because of the lack of information in game preference, many options are available to future researchers. First of all, research should be conducted on the link between family upbringing and game preference, perhaps looking at subjects much younger than college age. Another option could be to look into how people spend their money instead of their time. Because of the time put into some types of games, financial investment might be a better measure of how invested people are in a specific type of game.
EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
References
Bean, A., & Groth-Marnat, G. (2014, March 10). Video Gamers and Personality: A Five-Factor Model to Understand Game Playing Style. Psychology of Popular Media Culture. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000025
Blickenstaff, J. C. (2005). Women and science careers: Leaky pipeline or gender filter? Gender and Education, 17, 369–386. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540250500145072.
Brocklebank, S., Lewis, G. J., & Bates, T. C. (2011). Personality accounts for stable preferences and expectations across a range of simple games. PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES, 51(8), 881-886.
Ching, I. T. (2008). Personality Differences between Online Game Players and Nonplayers in a Student Sample. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 11(2), 232-234. doi: 10.1089/cpb.2007.0064
Chory, R. M., & Goodboy, A. K. (2011). Is basic personality related to violent and non-violent video game play and preferences? Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14(4), 191-198. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2010.0076
Condon, E., Derr, W., & Tawney, G. (2015). Machine to Play Game of Nim. United States.
Dietrich, F., & List, C. (2013). Where do preferences come from? International Journal of Game Theory, 42(3), 613-637. doi: 10.`7/s00182-012-0333-y
Diulio, A. R., Silvestri, M. M., & Correia, C. J. c. a. e. (2014). The role of personality variables in drinking game participation. Addictive Behaviors, 39(7), 1159-1162. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2014.02.005
Fang, X., & Zhao, F. (n.d.). Personality and enjoyment of computer game play. Computers in Industry, 61(4), 342-349. doi:10.1016/j.compind.2009.12.005
Giammarco, E., Schneider, T., Carswell, J., & Knipe, W. (2014). Video game preferences and their relation to career interests. Personality and Individual Differences, 73, 98-104. Retrieved March 24, 2015, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886914005388
John, O. P., Donahue, E. M., & Kentle, R. L. (1991). The Big Five Inventory--Versions 4a and 54. Berkeley, CA: University of California,Berkeley, Institute of Personality and Social Research.
John, O. P., Naumann, L. P., & Soto, C. J. (2008). Paradigm Shift to the Integrative Big-Five Trait Taxonomy: History, Measurement, and Conceptual Issues. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 114-158). New York, NY: Guilford Press. EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
Keng, C. (2013, November 19). Magic: The Gathering -- Losing 11.1% Market Value Overnight For Poor Customer Service. Retrieved March 25, 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/cameronkeng/2013/11/19/magic-the-gathering-losing-11-1-market-value-overnight-for-poor-customer-service/
Park, J., Song, Y., & Teng, C.-I. (2011). Exploring the Links Between Personality Traits and Motivations to Play Online Games. CyberPsychology, Behavior & Social Networking, 14(12), 747-751. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2010.0502
Rentfrow, P., & Gosling, S. (2006). Message in a Ballad: The Role of Music Preferences in Interpersonal Perception. Psychological Science, 17(3), 236-242. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01691.x
Research Shows $15.39 Billion Spent On Video Game Content In The US In 2013, A 1 Percent Increase Over 2012. (2014, February 11). Retrieved November 17, 2014, from https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/press-releases/research-shows-15.39-billion-dollars-spent-on-video-game-content-in-the-us-in-2013-a-1-percent-increase-over-2012/
Sanchez, C. A. (2012). Enhancing visuospatial performance through video game training to increase learning in visuospatial science domains. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19, 58–65.
Theatrical Market Statistics 2013. N.p.: Motion Picture Association of America, 31 Dec. 2013. PDF.
Thorne, H., Smith, J., Morgan, P., Babic, M., & Lubans, D. (2014). Video game genre preference, physical activity and screen-time in adolescent boys from low-income communities. Journal of Adolescence, 37(8), 1345-1352. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2014.09.012
Williams, D., Ducheneaut, N., Xiong, L., Zhang, Y., Yee, N., & Nickell, E. (2006). From Tree House to Barracks: The Social Life of Guilds in World of Warcraft. Games and Culture, 1(4), 338-361. doi:10.1177/1555412006292616
Xbox One Sales More Than Double in June with New $399 Option and Unveiling of Holiday Games Lineup. (2014, July 16). Retrieved March 25, 2015, from http://news.xbox.com/2014/07/xbox-one-xbox-one-sales-more-than-double-in-june
Yee, N. (2007). Motivations for Play in Online Games. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 9(6), 772-775. doi:10.1089/cpb.2006.9.772

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Transcript

Running Heading: EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
Examination of Personality and Game Preference
John Pollock
Texas A&M University - Commerce EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
Examination of Personality and Game Preference
The video game industry is growing very rapidly. In 2013 alone, over 15 billion USD were spent on video games (Research Shows, 2014), where theater spending in the United States and Canada only reached 10.9 billion USD (Theatrical Market Statistics, 2013). Such significant numbers indicate that the game industry, while not taken seriously until recently by many academics, has become a viable field of study. There are genres of games that exist only in the computer market, such as platformer (e.g. Super Mario World) or first person shooter (e.g. Halo or Call of Duty). However, many people still prefer to play non-computer games, such as tabletop or role-playing games. Groups that play these physical games are being targeted aggressively by the video game industry, as they are something of an untapped market. This study will attempt to identify connections between the types of games that people play and the traits identified in the Big 5 Personality Index (BFPI). Finding a link between game preference and these traits could give researchers another look into human personality and a more developed and academic look at game play in general.
With video games quickly changing how we perceive entertainment and even interacting with other people, it is interesting to examine how individuals are spending their “play time” based on basic personality traits such as extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability, all measured by the BFPI. Samuel Gosling, a researcher at the University of Texas, has examined how personality is connected to musical preference (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2006). And in some sense this is a conceptual replication of that work. EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
The inclusion of games as a societal activity predates such modern activities as television and radio and in fact, can be traced all the way back to the Egyptians, Greeks, and Persians. Video games are a much more recent development, beginning in 1940 at the Westinghouse display at the World’s Fair with Nim, a computer simulation of a traditional game (Condon, Derr & Tawney, 2015). In this era, games of some kind are enjoyed by almost all people, regardless of background, age, or gender. Games have always served as a form of social interaction, especially one that allows for two or more people to interact in a more structured activity. Personal preferences, especially when it comes to entertainment, are extremely varied, even within the individual, as preferences change over time and are influenced by many external factors e.g., when previously salient properties cease to be salient. (Dietrich & List, 2013). The purpose of this study is to examine preferences in game type and determine if there is a correlation between the form of a game preferred and personality. Finding a link between personality and game preference could influence the market in several ways, allowing developers to target their specific audience more accurately, as well as potentially drawing in new players. Because games are constantly evolving, continuing research in fields such as games is important so that researchers can explore the effect that current activities have on our society.
Previous studies have been performed that have considered the link between personality and game preference. On particular study, reported in 2010, suggests that “A comprehensive framework for examining the interaction between player characteristics and game features is needed for a better understanding of the process of game play and its impacts on users.” (Fang & Zhao, 2010). The study also starts by criticizing the fact that most of EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
academia is focused solely on the link between aggressive personalities and violent video games, and proposes that it is not known whether personality influences game choice or if game choice shapes personality. Fang and Zhao begin to lay out this proposed framework by investigating two personality traits (sensation seeking and self-forgetfulness) and their impact on the enjoyment of playing computer games. A correlation between game enjoyment and type of game was found, suggesting that people have predetermined preferences when seeking out a game. Building on this idea and expanding it beyond the limitations of computer games will give researchers a much more comprehensive understanding of how games are experienced by different people. At an over-arching level, this call forms the basis of the present study.
A study was performed by researchers at the University of Newcastle in Callaghan, South New Wales, Australia that examined a possible connection between the types of video games played by adolescent boys as well as their participation in physical activity and recreational screen time (Thorne, et al., 2014). This study examined boys, roughly 13 years old, in low-income communities in New South Wales. The study found that there is a correlation between “weekday and weekend screen-time and weekday physical activity.” The data also “suggested that time spent in screen-based recreation on weekends may displace physical activity.” The most interesting piece of data, however, is that the groups that primarily played sports and racing games had the lowest amount of screen time per day, and the highest amount of physical activity, timewise. Likewise, players of role-playing and strategy games had the highest screen times and lowest physical activity times. While such games generally require a much more serious time investment, it is significant that there is a discernible difference in EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
what children are playing and how that affects their lives. This suggests that there is some influence of personality on what type of entertainment a person enjoys.
Personality and some aspect of game preference is a new field of study that has slowly followed the rise in popularity of video games. However, no study has concurrently examined different types of game formats. Instead, most of this work has been using computer games. For example, Park, Song, & Teng have identified five major factors that influence people to play online games, but found no correlation between personality and preferred online game genre (2011). Another study, performed by Nick Yee, also examined motivations for online game play and how the relate to attributes such as age, gender, and in-game behaviors (2007). Some tentative findings have been made about video game type preferences and personality. For example, one study shows that people who are open, yet not agreeable, are more drawn to violent video game play (Chory & Goodboy, 2011), whereas Ching (2008) found that, in the sample those that played online video games scored much higher in openness, conscientiousness, and extraversion than those that did not. Building on that, Park, Song, and Teng (2011) explore the link between personality and motivations to play online video games. The study determined, similar to Chory’s study, agreeableness and extraversion were most salient in predicting motivations to play online games. This is a reasonable conclusion, as the reward system offered in many online games is somewhat unique, generally assigning rewards for time spent as opposed to rewarding the increase of a manual skill of the player. This style of progression likely appeals to a very different person than one who may enjoy a system of achievement purely based on the improvement of individual skill. EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
Some studies have been done on other “games” and personality, such as drinking games. In 2014, a study was published that showed a link between drinking game participation and impulsive, thrill-seeking tendencies (Diulio, Silvestri, & Correia, 2014). This study was done to inform students of the dangers of drinking games, but it confirms a common assumption about them. That is, that participation in drinking games is linked to impulsivity and sensation seeking. Brocklebank, Lewis, & Bates examined links between personality, preferences, and expectations across several simple games (2011). The study used real-money games that were related to simple economics and found that a single dimension called “prosocial orientation” measured concern for the payoffs received. Scores on this dimension were closely related to personality, with openness, low neuroticism, and low extraversion as predictors.
The relationship between physical and digital games has been bridged in some ways, but with mixed results. Online versions of card games such as Magic: The Gathering have met with reasonable success, but have not approached the popularity of their physical counterparts. Recently, for example, the value of Magic Online cards has dropped 11.1% (Keng, 2013). Similarly, while role-playing games are a popular computer genre, they have not displaced table-top games such as Dungeons and Dragons. Other links between the physical and virtual world such as the Microsoft Kinect have also met mixed success, with the Xbox One doubling in sales numbers after they offered a lower priced, Kinect-free alternative (Xbox One Sales, 2014). These devices are great for families, but fail to succeed in appealing to a more “hardcore” gamer.
Links between game and career preference have also been examined, with the strongest associations found in women, especially when those women were interested in EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
STEM-related fields (Giammarco, 2014). Spatial ability has been examined as a factor for determining how successful one will be in a STEM-related field (Blickenstaff, 2005), and video games, especially competitive ones may highlight those same skills (Sanchez, 2012). Giammarco also studied the types of interactions that players sought in games and how they influenced career interests. His study supported the hypothesis that players that sought more social activities in games were more likely to prefer careers in leadership and counseling positions. It was also hypothesized that a preference for fantasy games was an indicator of interest in the creative arts. However, this finding was not supported, and it is hypothesized that a preference for fantasy games may be an indicator of creative preference in general, such as abstract problem solving.
World of Warcraft (WoW), being the dominant online computer game that it is, deserves a mention. This game has been examined several times in several different lights in regards to personality. The strongest correlations occur not within the player’s specialization, class, or even race, but by which type of content they enjoy. More specifically, the players that participated strictly in role-playing content were identified as higher in agreeableness, neuroticism, and openness to experience, but lower on extraversion and conscientiousness. However, the values for all players was not significantly different than the average for non-WoW players (Bean & Groth-Marnat, 2014). The results actually determined that WoW players scored, on average, less neurotic than the general population. Several researchers from the University of Illinois and the Palo Alto Research Center have also studied the social dynamics of guilds in WoW. The found that these collections of players were often utilized to extend real-life relationships, meet new people, form relationships, and provide a backdrop for their EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
actions in-game (Williams et al., 2006). These results could be used to draw conclusions that because of the sheer amount of time required to fully experience a game like WoW, personalities are being shaped by the game.
As evidenced by the aforementioned studies, there surely is a link between some kinds of games and some aspects of a person’s personality. While results thus far have been piece-meal, a broad examination would introduce a new perspective that allows future researchers to more strategically examine how personality is reflected in our everyday entertainment preferences. Being able to identify links between personality and game preference would offer great benefits to psychology, game designers, and marketing firms. It can be reasonably hypothesized that a link between personality and game preferences exists, due to the amount of successful research performed in the past. This study will attempt to further detail that link.
Method
A total of 98 participants were drawn from a pool of students at Texas A&M University – Commerce. The survey was conducted online via the survey hosting website, Qualtrics. The responses were made up of individuals from several backgrounds. Of the responses, 49% were white/Caucasian, 26.5% were African American, and the other 24.5% was made up of several other ethnicities. Considering the surveyed population was college students, it is not surprising that 40.8% of the responses were from individuals aged 20-22, with 25.5% being 18-19, and the other 33.7% being 23 or over. The average participant played games of any kind for between 3 and 4 hours per week, and had been playing games for between 5 and 10 years. Video games were played just slightly more often than non-video games. The most played non-video game EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
type was social games, consisting of group narrative games and simple games not including organized sports. The most played video game type was casual, such as Angry Birds or Candy Crush. Post-hoc, the data was divided by those with a tendency to spend time on one game modality. Dividing the groups by video game time left 38 people in the primarily video gamers category (henceforth referred to as video gamers), and 31 in the primarily non-video gamers category (henceforth referred to as non-video gamers). The other 29 results spent between 40 and 60 percent of their game time playing both types of games.
In order to assess their game preferences, participants answered a multi-part survey that starts by asking what percentage of their time they spend playing tangible versus virtual games. The survey then goes on to ask about different types of games while prompting the participant to indicate what percentage of their time that they spend on each type of game. Physical game players were asked to indicate how they spend their time between bar, card, social, sports, and tabletop games. Each of the categories has at least two subcategories that the participant was again asked about. For example, the participants that indicated having spent time on tabletop games were then asked to report how they split their play time between board, casino, miniature, role-playing, and simulated sports games. Each type of game includes a brief description and at least two examples to ensure that the participant is informed about their decision. Virtual game players or people that responded that they spend time on both kinds of games were then asked about how they spend their time with different genres of computer games. The different genre options offered are: action, shooter, action/adventure, adventure, role-playing, simulation, strategy, sports, casual, and rhythm. The extreme detail in EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
differentiating game preference type is crucial as people presumptively spend more time on games that they enjoy.
Participants were then asked to complete a 44 item Big-Five Personality Inventory (John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008). The Big-Five was chosen as it “permit[s] researchers to study specified domains of related personality characteristics, rather than examining separately the thousands of particular attributes that make human beings individual and unique.” Each item is Likert-scaled from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). While it is only 44 questions long, the BFPI is very reliable with an alpha of .83, making it one of the best choices for an overall survey of personality items (John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008).
Finally, participants were prompted to complete the survey by providing basic demographic information including sex, age, ethnicity, level of education, religiosity, and experience with games. A basic religiosity measure was included in the survey, as it was developed for a related study using this same data, but that information was not used here. A copy of the survey can be found in Appendix A. After collecting the data, a variety of descriptive statistics and correlations provided a first look at the data. Subsequent analysis created and compared the two aforementioned groups, based on how much of their time they spent playing video games. Those that spent more than 60% of their game playing time playing video games were classified as video gamers. Those that spent less than 40% of their time playing video games were classified as non-video gamers.
EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
Results
There were some significant correlations between aspects of personality as measured by the Big 5 and game preference as measured from self-reported time spent. For example, more extraverted individuals were less likely to spend time playing card and tabletop games as opposed to other tangible game types. Additionally, as neuroticism went up, playtime in both physical sports and video game sports went down. By contrast, playtime in MMORPGs was positively correlated with neuroticism. And, openness score was positively correlated with increased playtime in both role-playing and empire building/resource management board games. All of these correlations are significant at least at the p < 0.05 level.
A one-factor ANOVA was performed with video gamer/non-video gamer being the sole factor, followed by a t-test using the personality variables. These tests showed only a few significant results, but none of them linked to personality. ANOVA Results with significance can be found in Table 1. Table 2 contains ANOVA results for the BFPI variables.
Table 1
One-factor ANOVA Results for Video Gamers vs. Non Video Gamers
Category
Video Gamer
Non-Video Gamer
F
Significance
Time Spent Playing Games
3.45
2.82
7.975
0.006
Hours Played per Week
3.77
2.91
7.181
0.009
Current Income Level
1.73
2.45
6.997
0.010
EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
Table 2
T-Test Personality Results for Video Gamers vs. Non Video Gamers
Category
Video Gamer
Non-Video Gamer
t
p
Extraversion
3.1307
3.1912
0.365
0.716
Agreeableness
3.8333
3.6217
-1.499
0.138
Conscientiousness
3.4596
3.4902
0.219
0.828
Neuroticism
3.1786
3.0662
-0.680
0.499
Openness
3.5588
3.4572
-0.705
0.483
Because of the scaling used in the survey, the results in Table 1 require some interpretation. Time Spent Playing Games for Video Gamers was between 5-10 years and 10+ years. Non Video Gamers had been playing games for 2-5 to 5-10 years. Hours played per week for Video Gamers was between 3-4 and 5-9. Non Video Gamers spent 3-4 hours per week playing games. Current Income range (or parents’ income range) was between $0-$18,999 and $19,000-$45999. Non Video Gamers’ income ranges were between $19,000-$45,999 and $46,000-$75,999. Because of the wording of the question, it is likely some subjects reported their own income, and others their parents. This potential confound limits the utility of this variable.
Discussion
The idea that video gamers are very different from non-gamers is quite commonly held. This study was performed under the assumption that this was true. However, the results indicate no strong personality differences as indicated by the Big Five. This could be interpreted in a number of ways. The one hypothesis is just that video gamers and non-video gamers are not that different, personality-wise, that is, gamers are gamers. The results support this, as there is not a significant difference between the two groups. This could serve as an effort to redirect research not towards personality differences between people that primarily play video EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
games and people that primarily play other games, but towards different ways of categorizing gamers. Another possible explanation is that people who play games are just no different than others, that is, that gaming is not a meaningful correlate with personality. However, previous findings do not support such a position.
The research did, however, show that there is a correlation between playing video games over non-video games and the amount of time an individual has spent playing games, the number of hours an individual plays games per week, and (perhaps) their current income level. Those that indicated that they spend 60% or more of their game time playing video games had also been playing games for longer in general. They also spent more time per week playing games. In short, this suggests that most “hardcore” gamers were computer gamers.
The results of previous studies are mirrored in our findings. Park, Song, & Teng studied a smaller aspect of games (online gaming), but found no significant correlation between personality and preferred online game genre (2011). However, Ching found that those that played online video games scored much higher in openness, conscientiousness, and extraversion (2008). Our results show very slightly decreased extraversion and conscientiousness, and slightly increased openness among those that preferred video games over physical games, but none of those relations reached statistical significance. It should also be considered that this study did not differentiate between online and offline video games, but between video game and non-video game types.
Bean & Groth-Marnat also studied a similar phenomenon in World of Warcraft (WoW) players, and found that players that enjoyed certain types of content displayed different personality traits (2014). However, when compared with non-WoW players, the population EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
displayed no statistically significant differences in any of the personality variables. This finding then does align with our research, showing that playing a specific game or type of game does not indicate any personality trait’s presence.
Future research in this field is still warranted. Because of the lack of information in game preference, many options are available to future researchers. First of all, research should be conducted on the link between family upbringing and game preference, perhaps looking at subjects much younger than college age. Another option could be to look into how people spend their money instead of their time. Because of the time put into some types of games, financial investment might be a better measure of how invested people are in a specific type of game.
EXAMINATION OF PERSONALITY AND GAME PREFERENCE
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